November 1, 2005

But Armando, please, throw in a link to my blog! That's just flat out, passive aggressive, link deprivation! No fair!

Well, by Kos standards, I am "the Right Wing," as Armando tries to understand how the Right Wing thinks by reading my NYT op-ed. Good luck with that! Oh, at least I've led his fevered mind down a blind alley. Nice move dismissing my references to actual case law as "fairly arcane discussion" and then calling me "facile."

Anyway, link, dammit.

UPDATE: Steven Taylor reports that Michael Medved called me a "liberal law professor" on his radio show -- and then Ruth Anne, one of our faithful commenters here, corrected him on the air! Ruth Anne shows up in the comments on this post too and tells the tale. Thanks, Ruth Anne. How interesting to have Kos call me a right winger and Medved call me a liberal on the same day, based on the same essay!

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I just got an email, with the subject line "Scalito Story," that reads:

You are the worst sort of vile crap to be teaching at a public university, and to be on staff at what should be seen as a prestigious institution is disgusting. It is you and your like that are tearing this country apart. Go home to your cave and commiserate with your kind.

Whew, I feel better.

What do you think are the chances that this person learned what he thinks he knows about me from reading DailyKos?

42 comments:

This will come off as snarky, but I have to ask: If you're not "right wing" or "conservative" in your sensibilities, why oh why is there a banner mid-way down your site that says "buy conservative advertising"?

Someone seems to have this impression.

I have no ties to Daily Kos or Armando, but I don't think they were acting irresponsibly by linking to your Op-Ed, which is what they were specifically referring to. Your blog references the op-ed in a similar fashion. Or were you making a funny?

Armando does make one valid point--that perhaps Roe was not the best case to use to illustrate how Burger and Blackmun parted ways, since they both voted with the majority in that case. He then proceeds to harp on that point to the ignorance of Ann's underlying point--that judges frequently defy people's expectations.

I don't agree with Alito about a lot of things, but I fail to understand why we can't talk about and debate the issues rather than resort to debate in the form of nicknames and namecalling.

Effern: I was invited to join that BlogAds group and am eager to increase my income from writing. I don't write anything different because I'm in that group, and they saw fit to invite me. If liberals had demonstrated the same inclusiveness toward me, I would have responded. Frankly, I'm more of a liberal than a conservative.

Anyhow, whatsisname on Kos is right about the "facile" thing: Althouse called for "close study" of "a decade and a half of judicial opinions", and then failed to provide a close study of the whole decade and a half in her op-ed piece. Whatsisname very shrewdly and insightfully noticed the absence, and called her on it. It's the chickenhawk thing all over again: She called for a "close study", but she didn't provide one.

The labels are shifting around you, though. Those the 'world' recognizes now as liberals no longer identify with you. And do you identify with those who are becoming the face of American liberalism politically? Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, John Kerry? Kos?

Further, I believe that many conservatives, at least within the blogosphere, do identify with you. They see you as part of the big tent, even if you don't feel as if it is your home.

You may be becoming a conservative without changing a single point of view that you have held.

The lack of comity and the overall discourteousness amongst the left will only drive moderates and the mildly left of center (like the good professor) farther into the clutches of us eeeeeeeeeeevil (maybe I should use a few more e's to convey just how evil) Republicans.

Sen. Harry Reid called for a closed session of the Senate just about an hour ago and Sen. Frist gave a livid press conference just now, and for good reason.

The Democrats know that Judge Alito is well qualified by all objective standards so grandstanding of this sort and petulant appeals to emotionalism are their only tools in combatting Republicans.

In the immortal words of Mr. King (the frequent felon, not the Reverend) "Can't we all just get along?"

I agree with md. I used to be a democrat. The Dems have shifted left, waaaay left, and are pushing even further left still. In their view, I am now a rabid conservative, although my views are quite similar to those I held in college.

I also found that the intellectual stimulation came more from the right than the left. The Nation and The Progressive and The Utne Reader got to the point where you could read one issue ayear and it was like you didn't miss anything at all. Totally bereft of imagination, and insulting, too.

Maybe they're right, and I did change. But heck if I can figure out any coherent narrative for a plan over at Kos. It's not unlike a Kennedy conspiracy website. You start to wonder if most of those folks venture away from their monitors at all.

XWL, it is unnecessary to use any extra e's to show how evil Republicans are. In fact, it is unnecessary and redundant (not to mention unnecessarily redundant and redundantly unnecessary) to use the word 'evil'. Republican suffices. Satan is OUR minion!

The difficulty is that the activist base of the Democratic party (well represented at DKos and in the Dean campaign) believe that the answer is to move to the left. (Some of them would argue it's not about left/right, but about "standing up," but as a Democrat, I think that's a load.)

In the meantime, academic and intellectual Democrats argue for incremental policy change. The activist base is not so interested in doing so, instead preferring to simply oppose and offer grandiose idealistic vision.

I'm in the latter group--I believe that much of what the activist base wants is (ultimately) the right thing. The problem where we part is how to get there, and what's more effective in getting there. I think their methodology is a recipe for alienating voters, they think I'm insufficently pure.

Since he was commenting on your NY Times op-ed and didn't seem to discuss you as a blogger, per se, should he be expected to link to your blog, in addition to the op-ed piece? Perhaps, interestingly enough, one downside of your growing national reputation is the loss of the blogging identity that may have fostered your admittance to a wider sphere of deliberation.

It also seems that the more famous you become, the more folks will be able and inclined to define and use the symbol, "Althouse," to their own ends--much like the phrases you talked about in yesterday's NPR show.

Tim: I know, and it's partly my fault for not bothering to put my blog address in the description of who I am in the op-ed. But Kos ought to notice when it's talking about other bloggers. There should be some blogger courtesy. On the other hand, Glenn Reynolds linked to the op-ed without giving me a blog link, so....

Actually, I'd argue that there are "shrink the tent" elements in BOTH parties. (Hardcore social conservatives in the Republican Party, hardcore Kossack-types in the Democratic party.) Personally, I think America is better served with two parties that try to compete rather than two parties both of which go as far to one side as they can.

I love that e-mail. Quite a winner, indeed. What a charmer. I can't decide whether or not the person thinks you're one of those eeeevil Republicans or just another Madison tenured radical, but your DailyKos theory is certainly a good one.

XWL writes: The Democrats know that Judge Alito is well qualified by all objective standards so grandstanding of this sort and petulant appeals to emotionalism are their only tools in combatting Republicans.

The question that a Senator must consider is whether Alito will make a good Supreme Court Justice. Qualifications are one piece of evidence to use in making such a judgement; past rulings, judicial philosophy, and past writings are other pieces of evidence.

Ann writes in her New York Times article that if Democrats don't play nice on this, there will be repercussions. It seems to me that civility in congress has completely broken down, already. I'm sure you believe that that is the fault of the Democrats, while I believe that it is the fault of the Republicans.

Interesting that Ann thinks of herself as more liberal than anything. I see her as pretty close to the middle - conservative here and liberal there. And I think the fact that on the same day she can be called liberal by a conservative and conservatie by liberals pretty much puts here there in the middle. Sorry Ann.

Off of the top of my head, Ann has:1. Thought that Michael Shaivo should have the right to do what he did.2. Is supportive of gay marrage3. Voted for Bush4. Supported Roberts5. Says that we should read the opinions that Alito wrote.

The Democrats have developed an impressive recipe for the opposite of success.

Their monetary and intellectual capital come from their left fringes, anyone who doesn't appeal to that narrow group are marginalized within the Democratic party, unless they are perceived as being secretly more liberal than how they actually govern (Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama would be the best current examples).

As far as actual passed legislation you could argue that each Democrat that followed a Republican (Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton) governed to the right of their immediate predescessors.

But (and this is a big old Butt), the majority of people hear the shrill chorus from NOW, CodePink, MoveOn, SEIU and the like and most Democratic politicians are too afraid of funding evaporating to have their own Sista Soulja moments.

So in otherwords this is a great time to be a Republican, cause even if your opponents win, your favored policies are likely to be enacted, and should your candidates win your preferences are still likely to dominate the national dialogue.

So in otherwords everyone in this thread is right. The democrats haven't moved left at all (in governance). The democrats are as far left as they have ever been (in rhetoric).

The question is what do hoi polloi pay more attention to, policies passed, or talking heads and political ads?

quxxo, we've spent every moment since November 2000 being called Adolf Hitler.

And, yeah, Ann is a moderate. I know it's fashionable in some circles to call anybody to the right of John Edwards a "radical right-wing extremist", but that turns out not to be entirely accurate. Berkeley and Cambridge aren't the "center" in this country, notwithstanding what I keep hearing from my friends in both places.

There's seems to be a deeply weird meme loose among the Kos types that Cambridge and Berkeley are the center, and always have been, and this whole conservative thing is something new and alien. I guess it's part of the whole claiming-to-be-patriotic thing. What's funny is I remember all the young lefties when I was in college ranting endlessly about how the US was and always had been a right-wing nightmare. Back then, the conservatives weren't seen as betraying the nice liberal founders; they were seen as continuing the evil work of the awful right-wing founders: "They all owned slaves, man! SLAVES!" (Which quite a few of them did, actually.)

It's an AP story about an interview in the DEC Vanity Fair with Woody (Cocaine Kate is on the cover, not naked, that should drive some extra traffic your way, no need to thank me).

The lead statement for the article is what caught my attention and in a way fits in with MoDowd's complaint possibly:

" Woody Allen says his relationship with wife Soon-Yi Previn, which has a 'more paternal feeling,' is 'one of the truly lucky things that happened to me in my life.' "

A man about to turn 70 feeling paternalistic towards his 35 year old wife would be icky on it's own but not unusual, but when said paramour also happens to be his adoptive daughter from a previous relationship than classifying his affections as 'paternal' take on a much more disturbing meaning.

He's doing the VF interview to push his new film, "Match Point" but that discussion will no doubt be overshadowed by his 'paternal' love for his wife.

Now, how is that for off topic, you won't see this kind of discourse over at DailyKos.

Of course, I guess, I have to preface the following with the statement that I find the whole Allen/Farrow/Soon-Yi situation icky. I did then. The feeling last.

However, in point of FACT:

Soon-yi was NEVER adopted by Allen. He did NOT marry his adoptive daughter. He & Farrow had one bio and shared (or did share, since at least one later repudiated the action, I think) legal of adoption of two others (Dylan and Moses), if memory serves.

At BEST, one could say he married the equivalent of a stepdaughter--except that he & Farrow never married, they maintained separate apartments, & he didn't exactly act as father figure for all the kids as "father" would be defined, at least at one time.

I actually can't blame people for not knowing/remembering these facts, since it's not like the media keeps reiterating them (you can reiterate facts while still disapproving actions--a distinction that appears to be lacking in much of our media).

Of course, all of this doesn't excuse icky (or more) behavior on Allen's part. But facts, accuracy, and precision are still useful.

reader_iam, you are right to chastise my imprecision, there is no reason to overstate the nature of their past relationship to make their current marriage seem creepy.

In my opinion any man who had significant contact with a girl while she was still pre-pubescent regardless if he was a parent or custodian should be viewed with disgust at worst and suspicion at best by society at large if he takes up with her in a sexual relationship.

(and the same goes for any combination of genders between the two parties)

With all that said, they do seem happy together and supportive of each other and it sounds like his new film might be watchable and despite all the mess in his personal life I continue to be a fan of his films.

Ann,There simply isn't a higher compliment than Armando thinking you're completely wrong. It's like recieving hate mail from the KKK - if they hate you, you're doing something right. There are posters at Kos who are genuinely interesting and in posession of keen insights. He isn't one of them. The man is, and always has been, a moron with nothing to add to any debate. He's the poster child for everything that's wrong with Daily Kos - the prototypical hysterical know-nothing.

all this nonsense about the democrats taking cues from the "extreme moveon.org wing of the party" while their 3 last presidential nominees have not exactly been "extremists" now have they?

even the most liberal of them, gore, who for unknown reasons ran as a williams jennings bryan type populist, had until that point in his career exemplified a business friendly moderate democrat.

but yes, keep to your dick cheney talking points about "extremists" running the democratic party

gee, didn't the james dobson wing of the GOP just force miers out? didn't the james dobson wing force that ungodly schiavo spectacle on us? didn't the james dobson wing force this so-called intelligent design "debate" on us?

but yes, it is the democrats, who timidly supported bush throughout his first term only to be labelled anti-american traitors in their re-election campaigns, who are the captives of extremist elements.